What was your last concert?

[roberta]

kaiser chiefs a couple of months ago

[Nick Armstrong]

Fauré's 'Requiem' on Thursday evening - an amateur performance with family taking part, given at the youngsters' lycée in Rennes in Brittany (which includes a specialist choir school).

Conductor took it all a bit slow for my taste but some great young-voiced choral sounds in a great space: not a bad chapel for a school !!





(Interesting and impressive organ too, a 19th C instrument bought and brought over from a London church a couple of years ago http://orguesaintvincent.musicblog.fr/ )

[teamsaint]

I was at an amateur event today.
Southampton Uni Symphonic Wind Orchestra, at the (very nice) Bandstand in Bournemouth lower gardens.
A nice programme of Holst, a piece by one of the band, some Stravinsky etc.

a sunny day, and lots of locals , visitors, families and so an all enjoying some lovely music. Just a really pleasurable event, music doing what it does so well.

Your Faure looks good too, Mr Mod.

But Roberta, the Kaiser Chiefs...really ??!!

[EdgeleyRob]

Just been told I've got 2 tickets for this (birthday pressie) in a couple of weeks,made my day,who to take though ?

https://tickets.bridgewater-hall.co.uk/single/eventDetail.aspx?p=19203

[teamsaint]

Just been told I've got 2 tickets for this (birthday pressie) in a couple of weeks,made my day,who to take though ?

https://tickets.bridgewater-hall.co....l.aspx?p=19203

nice programme ER, hope that has helped to cheer you up.Sure you will have a great evening.
Music lets you down a good deal less than some other activities, in my experience.

[mangerton]

Fauré's 'Requiem' on Thursday evening - an amateur performance with family taking part, given at the youngsters' lycée in Rennes in Brittany (which includes a specialist choir school).

Conductor took it all a bit slow for my taste but some great young-voiced choral sounds in a great space: not a bad chapel for a school !!


(Interesting and impressive organ too, a 19th C instrument bought and brought over from a London church a couple of years ago http://orguesaintvincent.musicblog.fr/ )

Merci bien, Caliban, très intéressant. I remember attending an open air concert in Rennes, one quatorze juillet, thirty or so years ago!

[Flosshilde]

Fauré's 'Requiem' on Thursday evening - an amateur performance with family taking part, given at the youngsters' lycée in Rennes in Brittany (which includes a specialist choir school).

Conductor took it all a bit slow for my taste but some great young-voiced choral sounds in a great space: not a bad chapel for a school !!

Indeed, a super building. Do you have any more pictures of it? Can't find anything on the web.

[davehsug]

Victoria hall Stoke last night. Halle with Rory McDonald conducting. Beethoven Leonora overture no:3, Mendelssohn Italian symphony & Saint-Saens organ symphony.
Thrilling concert & a real Friday night uplifter. Enjoyable overture, Excellent Italian & then an unbelievable Saint-Saens. The orchestra really went for it & the soloist, Jonathan Scott had a great time on the Vicky Hall organ. What a powerful instrument it is & the roof nearly came off. There seemed to be more than the usual number of "out of area" people there as I believe the organ is quite well known in those circles. It was actually quite emotional as I've never heard the symphony live before. Probably the best ovation I've ever heard given there. Just a thrilling concert!

[Nick Armstrong]

Indeed, a super building. Do you have any more pictures of it? Can't find anything on the web.

It's an extraordinary place, built mid-19thC in a sort of neo-Florentine style...

There's an exterior shot on page 4 of that link I posted earlier - scroll down the page: http://orguesaintvincent.musicblog.fr/4/

You can see a variety of pics if you paste

"lycée st vincent" rennes

into your google search box and do an 'image' search...

...this one shows the exterior of that Chapel from the front:






Some more about it (inc English translation) here

http://www.saintvincent-rennes.org/r...ent-providence

[scottycelt]

Amateur concert this evening by the Wilmslow Symphony Orchestra (conductor Kenneth Woods) in the town's Leisure Centre ... Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (Soloist Sophie Rosa) followed by Bruckner 7.

As befits a 'northern' orchestra the brass in the Bruckner was superb. The conductor read out a poem beforehand which I didn't particularly grasp at the time and still don't after discovering it on the internet. I think he should stick to conducting.

http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2013/01/26/if-i-were-to-play-trombone-on-a-bruckner-symphony/

[gurnemanz]

First-ever visit to Hexagon, Reading tonight. CBSO on virtuoso form under Sinaisky in a programme including Shosty's Sixth - the first time we had heard this work live - and Hamlet Film Music. The orchestra applauded the conductor heartily at the end and clearly enjoyed playing for him.

[amateur51]

Just been told I've got 2 tickets for this (birthday pressie) in a couple of weeks,made my day,who to take though ?

https://tickets.bridgewater-hall.co....l.aspx?p=19203

Great programme and a lovely present, ER. And happy birthday by the way

Maybe you could take scotty to show him that there is more to live music-making than Bruckner symphonires

[amateur51]

Fauré's 'Requiem' on Thursday evening - an amateur performance with family taking part, given at the youngsters' lycée in Rennes in Brittany (which includes a specialist choir school).

Conductor took it all a bit slow for my taste but some great young-voiced choral sounds in a great space: not a bad chapel for a school !!





(Interesting and impressive organ too, a 19th C instrument bought and brought over from a London church a couple of years ago http://orguesaintvincent.musicblog.fr/ )

What a triffic concert & venue, Caliban - and family involvement too. Any idea from which London church the organ oringinated?

[amateur51]

Last Friday, my friend Sam & I toddled along to London's Royal College of Music in bright Spring sunshine to attend another of RAM's free Free on Friday concerts. On the way in I met & said a passing 'hello' to Anthony Payne who works at RAM quite a bit.

This concert was to be selections from Wagner's operas conducted by Sir Mark Elder. It was one of RAM's all-ticket free concerts (most are unticketed) and the place was soon jammed. I saw Sarah Walker and Stéphane Denève in the audience; the latter is preparing RAM opera students for a concert performance of Poulenc Les animaux modèles (suite) and Ravel L’enfant et les sortilèges next Friday 27 April at Barbican Hall London, and to be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3

http://www.ram.ac.uk/events?event_id=1926

The programme turned out to be:

Wagner Parsifal: Good Friday Spell

Lohengrin: Prelude to Act One

Lohengrin: Prelude to Act Three

Tristan und Isolde: Prelude and Liebestod

Sarah-Jane Lewis (soprano)

It being a concert conducted by Sir Mark Elder, we were treated to a few words beforehand, including a neat joke about the recently announced Proms Wagner-fest. His words were in-context and made sense.

Elder conducted without baton and I grew fascinated by how he divided his work between his hands. It seemed to me from this evidence that perhaps Sir Mark is naturally left-handed. He used his shoulders a fair bit and used a knees-bend and a wiggle of his head occasionally. All was clearly done.

The orchestra attended well to Elder's (and Wagner's) dynamics and were aided by the violins being arranged antiphonally with the double basses behind the violins. The stage at RAM's Dukes Hall is steeply raked and so the timpanist was hovering over the entire proceedings.

The music had been cleverly arranged to show off different aspects of Wagner's music and the orchestra acquitted itself well, particularly the brass and woodwind, while the strings struggled at times to play truly quietly and then at other times managed it superbly.

The crowning glory of the concert was of course the Tristan extract. Sarah-Jane Lewis sat still for the most part, waiting for her contribution but she gradually started to sway in time to the music so that by the time it came for hwer to stand she was already in the zone.

Hers is not a huge voice nor a cutting voice but she soared very well when required and had good diction. Elder encouraged to orchestra to give its all and the effect was overwhelming. At the end there was a moment's pause and then the audience went wild, most deservedly. I turned to say something to Sam and found my usually taciturn friend in tears! "Overwhelming!" he said "Such surging music ... my ears have been opened!". You can't say fairer than that for your first Wagner concert, I reckon

[Nick Armstrong]

RAM's free Free on Friday concerts

.... would have been a bummer had "Free on Friday" meant anything else!

Good to read that review! Those Friday gigs are brill, aren't they...